polish builders galore? grand designs 2014

[mausmaus]

starts tomorrow.
bingo cards at the ready

• rain and more rain
  
• outragerous plans
  
• pregnant woman
  
• stretched budgets
  

forgotten anything?

[DustBunnyFarmer]

What I really want to know is how the container house looks in 10-20 years time. Is all the novel insulation crumbling inside his walls? Is it expensive/impossible to heat? The shiny reveal is all very well, but dies the house actually work?

[SqueezyCheeseWeasel]

Oh I love this one. It is fabulous. I also love the interior design.

I would agree re the longevity of the construction though. Will it stand the test of time?

[FruVikingessOla]

I've watched the container house a couple of times, because I wasn't sure what I made of it the first time round. Overall I think it's lovely - but I agree those outside stairs and the bedroom window are accidents waiting to happen.

[DustBunnyFarmer]

On the other hand, farmers (in my limited experience) tend to get on with stuff and are perhaps more sanguine about following health and safety regulations to the letter than some other professions.

[SqueezyCheeseWeasel]

I've just watched on catch up with Gregory and Rebecca. The Cornish ski chalet (German prefab panels). The one where she cries when Big Kev gushes about it.

It's clever and cool but it's not very comfortable. Those built in, thin, 1950's homage sofas, look really uncomfortable and the hideous chipboard bedroom walls - gopping. I like it as a holiday lodge or place to look around, an exercise in architectural techniques, but as a home? It's not for me.

[mausmaus]

those wraparound houses are a bit of a thing on gd, aren't they.

[Igneococcus]

How can you not know how deep you have to dig to get the height you want? Has nobody measured it before?

[WetAugust]

This couple don't have a clue do they?

where's the planning?

they just seem to have sold their old house, bought someone's back garden and are imposing a house they cannot afford on an already densely occupied area.

I find it incredible that they managed to get planning permission. it will cost a fortune to heat if the walls are polycarbonate.

some people in London seem to live on a different planet to me.

[Igneococcus]

They are quite extraordinarily incompetent.

[mausmaus]

at least the builders seem to know what they are doing...

[WetAugust]

the airhead arty types always make me cross

I like proper planning, costing,.......

[Igneococcus]

Even Kevin sounds exasperated.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

All I can say is 'oh dear'.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

How do the dogs walk on the patio bit?

[mausmaus]

she does have a point about the design of light switches and thermostats though.

not sure I like it, but it certainly has some lovely ideas.

at the price tag

[WetAugust]

So it cost them one million in total. does it look like one million pounds worth? I wouldn't pay that for it.

[FrontForward]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear

Can you imagine it after one winter?

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I presume there must be decent uv protection in the polycarbonate as it has a tendency to go brittle.

[WetAugust]

I don't believe that polycarbonate will produce the good insulation that they claimed it would. It's what conservatory rooves are made of and allow the building to get too not / too cold

As for taste! Yuk.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Certainly not my taste.

[Igneococcus]

I always end up sort of liking the results but I imagine a dark, wet, cold winter day to feel very grim in one of these buildings.

[SqueezyCheeseWeasel]

I hated this one. Cross between a sandwich box and a cowshed. Vile. So cold and clinical inside too.

The only features I did like were fondant fancy bathroom and the way the plastic sandwich box walls diffused the daylight. Hated that polished, mirror kitchen, impractical and brash.

[Igneococcus]

Some of these very modern designs feel more like attempts to show off just how edgy the people are who are building it an not like creating a place where one would actually want to live.
I'm still amazed they finished it considering their level of incompetence.

[KatieKaye]

I hated that house! In total it cost £1.2 million and it looked like a post-war pre fab. Corrugated concrete roofing designed for agricultural buildings is never going to mak a house look chic or cutting edge or whatever other phrases were trotted out. I don't actually care about the integrity of the design when the end result looks as bad as that.

The bathroom was especially hideous. Kevin might have rave on about what a brilliant "eye" they had, but a black loo seat on a green lavatory looks ghastly to most people.

Surely it is the epitome of bad design if an architect is told his clients have £300k and goes on to design a house that costs twice that?

Oh well, at least it didn't have those bi-fold doors.

[mausmaus]

today's seems almost sensible.